


time to answer (to a higher authority)

by MintChocolate5



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Buffy Summers, BAMF Pepper Potts, Civil War Team Iron Man, F/M, Female Friendship, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Mycroft Runs the World, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), more like Pepper fixes it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 17:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11560134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintChocolate5/pseuds/MintChocolate5
Summary: Pepper Potts does not stand around idly when someone hurts Tony.He isn't the only one with powerful friends.





	time to answer (to a higher authority)

**Author's Note:**

> I re-watched parts of CA:CW, got angry at Steve all over again, and wrote this.

Tony returns, but a piece of him is hollowed out. With Rhodey, Pepper can see his wounds easier, but she thinks that Tony’s are much deeper.

He is quieter, jumpy, and spends even more time in his lab than before. A few weeks go by, and he finally takes a break from working on the prosthetics for Rhodey. 

She is now staying at the Tower again, balancing politics, the company, and the emotional stability of the ones she cares about. Tony joins her one evening—a few drinks are involved—and the story of what actually happened in Siberia spills out of him.

Pepper Potts is furious.

She can barely think after what he tells her, but somehow almost two decades of working for the man and being the highest paid women in corporate America must have prepared her for this moment and she keeps it together until he stumbles away to bed.

Before, she had wanted to stay out of the Sokovia Accords, to allow Stark Industries to remain as neutral as possible under the circumstances. Now, the whole thing feels like a personal betrayal. The fugitive Avenger’s idiocy fueled with a shocking lack of conscience. She can hardly believe the sheer audacity of them defying the wishes of over a hundred sovereign nations. She absolutely is dumbstruck at Roger’s duplicity, at the way he treated Tony in probably one of the lowest moments of his life. 

And leaving him to die…

Her hands shake with outrage and a plan is being executed before she fully forms it, a phone in her hand, scrolling to a contact she never thought she would call for this reason.

 

 

Unlike the rogue Avenger’s, Pepper actually uses the established and lawful channels. The process to get permission for an outside group to capture the fugitives takes time. Not as much time as it may take in the future, since there are currently dozens of interested governments with furious citizens crying for the recapture of the lawbreakers. International outrage is high. The public image of the fugitives is destroyed. 

Pepper ruthlessly capitalizes on the public outcry to decide the matter in an emergency vote. Most of the nations are only too happy to comply, and pass the authorization with a resounding ‘yes!’ and sigh of relief at being able to show their citizens something is being done.

Wakanda, at the start of the emergency session, attempts to filibuster. Pepper is unimpressed and barely finishes rolling her eyes before a delegate from their party whispers something in the representative’s ear. He is quick to sit down after that. 

She learns later that several other countries hadn’t liked the former isolationist bold position and exerted political pressure to hurry along a decision that was going to happen anyway. While powerful and rich in resources, Wakanda has much to learn about international politics.

Two weeks later, permission to the elite special forces is granted. Pepper dearly wants to be part of the liaison between the UN and the special unit, but a full disclosure of her prior history with the individuals shows too much a conflict of interest. Instead a man named Mycroft Holmes is put in charge. She has never heard of him before but the whispers she hears indicates he is powerful and important.

So she watches the events unfold with maliciously eager eyes.

 

 

Papers across the world publish headlines that demand the fugitives turn themselves in. No official word reaches the UN about the location of the former Avengers—Pepper has her suspicions. 

Apparently, so does the man in charge of the task force. Another week passes with no word, and then someone leaks to the press where the fugitives are hiding.

WAKANDA HARBORS CRIMINALS, FLOUTS INTERNATIONAL LAW, screams the media.

The game is on.

 

 

“We got it,” Buffy Summers says impatiently, zipping her tactical jacket that she really believes to be unnecessary—it’s hideous, why oh why is puce a color?—and ties her hair into a sloppy ponytail. 

Mycroft is too professional to sigh in exasperation but she can tell he totally wants to. She tends to have that affect on people, especially middle-aged men in government positions. “Ms. Summers,” he starts and pauses in brief incredulity when she changes from three-inch heels to two inch ones. “I understand that you have extensive field expertise, but I must again stress the importance of following the procedural safeguards I outlined. Let’s go over them once more.”

“Let’s not,” she suggests cheerfully. “There’s only one thing I hate more than boring meetings—and that’s Glory.”

“Glory?” he repeats blankly, and it looks like an uncharacteristic action. She can see him thinking what greater powers decided that this woman should be in-charge of life or death situations?

“Yep,” Buffy pops the ‘p,’ and smiles sharply. “And I killed her. So.”

“I see,” he says, and instead of that information and patently Scary Bite Smile passively (okay, aggressively) intimidating him into letting her skip the meeting he guides her into his office, sits her down with a cup of coffee, and makes her go over the plan again anyway.

She pouts. He provides cookies. She allows the meeting to proceed.

An hour later, she drolly summarizes: “Portal in, grab the wicked witch, put bracelet no magic thingy on her. Subdue. Place inhibitor on floor, activate so bug man can’t go bug size. The rest of us enter and demand they come surrender or we use force. They don’t surrender, we use force. Two for each—hmm, are you sure? I don’t think we really need that many of the girls.”

“Your teams safety is my priority,” Mycroft answers, “and the most practical ratio of fighters to success rate is 2:1.”

“Okay, whatever, but I’m telling you that this is going to be easy peasy. I am there for morale and captaining. We cuff ‘em and transport to the containment cars and ride with them to be airlifted to the special criminal court in Geneva for arraignment. See? I got this.”

Mycroft finally concedes that this is as much reiteration of the plan that he is going to get before she resorts to physical force to escape. He allows her to leave with the promise to return in three hours for departure.

She goes to eat lunch and gather her troops.

 

 

The plan goes more or less the way Mycroft prepped her for.

The King of Wakanda allows them to enter the country and palace with trepidation. She does not know what went on behind the scenes but he is clearly not desirous of turning over the fugitives. His motivations are unclear but Buffy tends not to judge too quickly. She does not know his whole story, but what she does know is the harm caused by the individuals she is going to apprehend. That is enough for her to feel justified in participating. She’s been friends with Pepper Potts for almost a decade now and known Tony for about that long—nothing angers her more than someone harming her friends.

It’s a bit funny and ironic that she is acting as law enforcement when she had flouted the law so brazenly for much of her young life. 

The first part goes flawlessly. Buffy lets one of the new girls, Jacqueline, deliver the ‘surrender or we get you’ line. 

“Attention to the individual’s formerly part of the team known as the Avengers, this include: Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Scott Lang, Clint, uhhh,” Jacqueline clearly blanks for a moment and Quinn leans over to whisper into her ear. “Barton, and finally, the token woman, Wanda Maximoff. The aforementioned people must surrender to the United Nations Special Criminal Tribunal for arraignment and proceedings.”

Quinn then steps in for the next part. She had been activated as a Slayer part way through law school and had begged Buffy to get to do this. “You have the right to remain silent and do not have to say anything. Anything you do say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to attorney to present before and during questioning. If you cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you.”

The former Avenger’s stare at the six visible (four were standing in the hallway) women in shock. They had clearly been lounging, the room a common area, according to the King. He told Buffy that he had explained the possibility of their arrest and detainment, but apparently the fugitives hadn’t taken the eventuality very seriously.

No one says anything. Then Quinn impatiently demands, “Do you surrender?”

All eyes turn to Steve Rogers, the former Captain America. Buffy gets a total Riley vibe and can’t decide if that is a good or bad thing. She hopes he sees how futile the situation is. 

“I’m sorry, but can I clarify one thing first?” Scott Lang, the Ant Man…and Buffy has so many things to say about that… “did they really send a group of teenage girls to apprehend us?” He looks insulted.

Jacqueline huffs, Marissa rolls her eyes, and Buffy lets a smile touch her lips. Being underestimated never hurts.

“You got it, bug eyes, except that most of us aren’t teenagers,” Buffy says. “I’m flattered you think so. The secret is to not skimp on the sunscreen.”

Half the women nod in agreement.

“And omega-3’s,” Marissa adds.

“You can’t go wrong with daily ex-foliation,” Mai says, but Ana disagrees.

“Ladies,” Buffy says and they refocus. “So what’s it gonna be, Thelma?”

“Look,” Rogers raises his hands calmly. “You don’t want to do this. Let us leave here and no one gets hurt.”

“Is that a no?” Quinn asks. “You don’t surrender?”

Rogers sighs and nods. This is a signal for the fugitives to move.

Brief pandemonium unleashes.

Jacqueline flips in front of Barton, blocks a punch, and easily subdues him. He is quick to stop fighting; perhaps realizing that resisting arrest is not a great look. Marissa, also assigned to stop Barton, looks mutinous at the lack of action.

Wilson and Lang are similarly taken down, but by Quinn alone. Buffy beams proudly at her.

The only one still up for a fight is the good ‘ole Cap. He is holding his own in hand-to-hand with two of the girls, likely due to his enhanced serum status. He actually gets the upper hand, bodily throwing the two girls off him.

Buffy thinks of how Pepper described Rogers and his actions toward Tony. Revealing the murder of his parents, the murderer standing right there. Beating him. Leaving him for dead. 

The two girls recover quickly but Buffy waves at them. “Allow me.”

She circles him. 

He again tries to talk his way out. “Look, I know you are only doing your job and I can appreciate that. But there is more going on below the surface. I cannot allow you to take us to a high security prison and throw away the key. You should hear me out. The government is going to come for you and your friends next—people with abilities like ours should not be placed on some registry. That will only lead to exploitation.”

Buffy raises a brow. “From one blonde to another, you should really do your homework before making all those conclusory statements.”

“That is the reality. I’ve seen it happen before,” he says with authority, watching her carefully.

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not getting into a debate with a sanctimonious mansplainer, no gracias.” Bored of the chitchat, she snaps her leg out in a powerful roundhouse kick. It’s like hitting a brick wall, and he only grunts and is thrown a bit off center.

Good thing she has more than a decade of experience with fighting beings that are strong and fast. 

The fight is brutal and quick. Buffy doesn’t want to mess around with an enhanced human and restrains him forcefully with a trick she learned from Faith, within a minute. Quinn tosses her a pair of handcuffs made of really strong metal and she places them around his wrists. 

His gaze is incredulous. “Who are you?”

Buffy leans forward to whisper into his ear. “Team Ironman.”

 

 

The rest of the backup trickles in and the restrained fugitives are taken into heavily armored custody. 

The girls take the jet plane back. Most get dropped off in London but a few stick around to continue on to Geneva as an extra layer of protection. Buffy decides they can handle the boring part of the mission, babysitting, which will last another few days. 

She stays in London.

Mycroft shows up that same day, black town car approaching her as she is leaving her favorite coffee shop. 

She slips in, hands him a cup.

“Admirable job, Ms. Summers,” he tells her in his posh accent, his eyes intense and focused on her. “Perhaps we could discuss a continued arrangement for your services.”

Buffy almost spits out a mouthful of coffee, snickering. If her eyesight wasn’t extremely good, she may not have caught the reddening of his neck, combined with his immediate correction of, “I merely meant security and retrieval—”

She stops him with a hand on his shoulder and a beatific smile. “How about over dinner?”

 

 

CAPTURED, the headlines sing.

Pepper Potts puts aside her tablet to focus on the shareholder meeting. She smiles. Takes out her phone, thanks Buffy, and confirms their Thanksgiving plans.


End file.
